Recent spate of disqualifications may show an administration taking seriously President Xi Jinping’s warning not to cross ‘red line’ of threatening sovereignty

The summer of 2016 began on a bright note for Hongkonger Edward Leung Tin-kei. Then 25, he was hopeful of a breakthrough in the Legislative Council elections after making a huge impression on voters in a by-election five months earlier.

But dark clouds soon gathered over his candidacy as he found himself having to recant his position on independence for Hong Kong.

Facing a sea of cameras, the poster boy for Hong Kong independence told the press: “If I continue to take the moral high ground, I will be barred from entering the legislature as they wish.”

For good measure, a defiant Leung added: “In the end, I reckon the means are not as important as the end.”

He soon found himself barred from being a candidate, after the returning officer declared that his U-turn was insincere.

Like Leung, the pan-democratic camp’s top choice for the November by-election in Kowloon West was knocked out because she once advocated self-determination for Hong Kong, never mind that she was cleared to run in the 2016 race while maintaining that position.

Although the42-year-old academic had stopped calling for self-determination, her fate in the coming poll was no different than Leung’s.

This latest action against Lau shows a shifting red line laid down by Beijing on Hong Kong in the name of national security. Critics decry it as a blatant crushing of the new pro-democracy icons who came of age in the wake of 2014’s Occupy movement, the 79-day civil disobedience campaign for greater democracy that crippled parts of the city.

It also raises the somewhat Orwellian question: under Beijing’s increasingly hawkish watch, can politically active Hongkongers who displease the authorities get a second chance to re-enter politics?

No second chance?

The more immediate procedural concern is that Lau was disqualified with nary an official explanation. The government defied an earlier court ruling requiring electoral officials to give contenders a “reasonable opportunity” to address any concerns before making a decision.

Lau submitted her forms on October 2 and heard nothing until October 12, when she received the rejection notice.

The returning officer, a civil servant appointed by the Electoral Affairs Commission, decided that Lau had not genuinely changed her stance even though she had several months earlier abandoned calls for self-determination.

Bar Association chairman Philip Dykes said procedural fairness required the officer to check with Lau, and that it was a “disproportionate” move to disqualify a person from political office for life because of what he or she once said.

“From now on, elections in Hong Kong will lose their legitimacy,” he told the Post. “We used to say that at least half the Legco seats are democratically elected but now, it is crystal clear a vetting process has been inserted before polling begins.”

Half of Hong Kong’s 70 lawmakers are returned through direct elections, with the rest elected by trade-based constituencies with a narrower franchise.

Lau was never an advocate of Hong Kong independence, a clear bottom line both Beijing and the local government have ruled as unacceptable and in breach of the Basic Law, the city’s mini-constitution. What she had called for was self-determination, a concept which in theory did not mean pushing for independence.

Democracy scholar Professor Larry Diamondof Stanford Universityargued that self-determination could simply mean giving Hong Kong the right to choose how it ought to be governed, and this should not be conflated with the outright pursuit of independence.

Others dismiss this as splitting hairs, as self-determination could still mean independence as an option.

What clearly touched a raw nerve with authorities was that Lau once said the option of independence should be left open – a more pronounced point than merely calling for self-determination.

The government meanwhile has taken a broader view of what advocating for independence means in Hong Kong. Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor said the day after Lau’s disqualification : “One should not expect to be able to become a lawmaker if he or she advocates independence, self-determination or argues that ‘independence’ could be an option.”

Asked what a former independence advocate should do to be allowed to contest elections, Lam only said: “The evidence would be clear if this young person joined the government after graduating from university.”

Beijing loyalist Wong Kwok-kin, an adviser to Lam in her cabinet, the Executive Council, offered a suggestion. “If a person has indeed changed his stance on independence, he should pen an article on his social media platform or in newspapers to criticise the arguments he once held, explain why the cause is infeasible and illustrate how he has changed his mind.”

Wong denied this was effectively asking for a statement of repentance – a common practice on the mainland. He said Lau was barred because she changed her stance only in the run-up to the by-election, which was hardly reassuring.

Joshua Wong, now secretary general of youth-led group Demosisto, laughed off Wong Kwok-kin’s suggestion.

“Why should we bring self-criticism reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution to the electoral culture in Hong Kong?” he asked. “After all, these are just tools to threaten young people and discourage them from participating in politics.”

Given the government’s immovable position, he said he did not believe that he or his peers such as fellow Occupy student leader Nathan Law Kwun-chung would be able to stand for elections in the foreseeable future.

“The election ban on Lau has not only ‘disqualified’ a whole generation of young people, but also all rising political leaders following the Occupy protest,” the 22-year-old student said.

A final cleansing of Occupy’s new faces

The flurry of disqualifications could be said to stem from Edward Leung’s respectable performance in a Legco by-election in February 2016. He came in third in the New Territories East poll, with observers hailing it as a sign the city’s politics would be steered into uncharted territory.

But Leung and five others were then disqualified from contesting the September 2016 Legco elections because they had called for Hong Kong to break away from China or refused to pledge allegiance to the Basic Law, which states that the city is an inalienable part of China.

In the months that followed, six lawmakers, including Lau Siu-lai, were ousted following legal challenges by the government over their improper oaths of office.

In January this year, Joshua Wong’s party colleague Agnes Chow Ting was banned from running in the by-election for the Hong Kong Island constituency seat on grounds that Demosisto advocated self-determination for Hong Kong.

And in an unprecedented move last month, Lam’s administration outlawed the separatist Hong Kong National Party on grounds of protecting national security, by invoking the Societies Ordinance.

Observers say these actions show an administration that is taking seriously President Xi Jinping’s warning to Hongkongers last year not to cross the “red line” of threatening China’s sovereignty.

In February, Li Fei, now chairman of the Law and Constitution Committee in Beijing, placed the final nail in the coffin by ruling that calls for self-determination were no different from advocating for independence.

“All the new powers that emerged in the wake of the 2014 Occupy protests are now barred from elections, and whether we can still exist outside the establishment remains a question,” Joshua Wong said, referring to his party, which he feared could be the next on the chopping block.

Occupy movement leader Dr Chan Kin-man, a sociologist from Chinese University, said: “The authorities are trying to set themselves against a generation of people. The disqualification is not just about Lau alone, but also the civil rights of everyone.”

But he said it was still too early to say how the crackdown in the wake of the Occupy protests had affected the city’s fight for democracy.

“Some might leave out of frustration, but the oppression they experience today might also fully unfold one day,” he said.

Former chief secretary Anson Chan Fang On-sang, now convenor of the think tank Hong Kong 2020, said Lau’s disqualification over views she expressed two years ago was not only arbitrary but also lacking in transparency as due process had not been followed.

“Lau’s disqualification will only add to young people’s increasing disillusionment with and distrust of Beijing and the Hong Kong government,” she said. “This is no way to engage our younger generation or to foster love of the motherland.”

Joshua Wong, meanwhile, pledged to push on with his activism and said he believed international lobbying might work to defend the city’s freedoms.

“The fight in Hong Kong has been difficult – but definitely not as tough as in many countries in Southeast Asia,” he said.

Under the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992, Washington supports democratisation and human rights for Hong Kong and has a special policy towards the city – different from its policy towards China – as long as it is “sufficiently autonomous”.

Some activists, including Andy Chan Ho-tin from the outlawed Hong Kong National Party, have urged US President Donald Trump’s administration to scrap Hong Kong’s special status given the escalating concerns over the city’s autonomy.

Several US politicians have echoed the call. A group of US senators – including Marco Rubio, of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China – have also resurfaced the shelved Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act, which would set out heavy punishment for local government officials or those in mainland China who suppress basic freedoms in the city.

Wong said: “Against the backdrop of the US-China trade war, it is interesting to note whether the US would revisit Hong Kong’s special status if the city’s government continues to do whatever it wants to erode freedoms and rights.”

For now, it is Hong Kong’s young activists who have to revisit their own status – to be within or outside the system.

This article first appeared in The Radio Free Asia on 29 October 2018Link to original article: HERE

Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have installed facial recognition equipment at several subway stations in the provincial capital Guangzhou in recent weeks, residents said on Monday.

Anyone wishing to use the Guangzhou Metro has to have a facial scan for the pilot scheme, which is likely to be rolled out nationwide in future, state media reported.

According to the Guangzhou Daily newspaper, passengers will get a QR code for their smartphone containing their personal information when they pass the security gates, before passing through the facial recognition machine.

Passengers with a higher social credit score will be able to fast-track through the system, the paper said, as the facial imprint is linked to big data about individual behavior and “trustworthiness” held by various government departments and law enforcement agencies, the paper reported.

To use the machines at Wanshengwei Station A, Zhujiang New Town Station B1, Jiahe Wanggang Station B, and Sports West Road Station E, passengers will need to download the Guangzhou metro app and enable its “smart security” function.

However, social media users complained that the system was dogged by queuing at peak times, with lines tailing back hundreds of meters.

“I didn’t use the subway in Guangzhou today,” a local resident surnamed Chen told RFA on Monday. “It’s too much hassle, because you have to spend so much time lining up to do security checks.”

“I would rather take a taxi,” he said.

Already heavily monitored

Facial recognition systems are also being rolled out in Guangzhou stores, where they are used to predict what products shoppers might buy, recent media reports indicated.

It is now widely expected to be rolled out in airports, subways, and bus and railway stations across China in the months and years to come.

Chinese citizens are already monitored by more than 20 million surveillance cameras as they go about their daily business in public places, according to a recent documentary by state broadcaster CCTV.

Now, artificial intelligence can identify and “tag” individual cars, cyclists, and pedestrians with distinguishing information that can be stored and searched for descriptions of wanted individuals.

The smart video tool correctly identifies the gender, age, and clothing descriptions of passersby, as well as distinguishing between motorized and non-motorized vehicles, recent media reports say.

The technology comes amid a growing trend towards using facial recognition as a secure form of ID, including to identify rail and airline passengers, physical and e-commerce customers, and missing persons cases.

Facial recognition technology is already used by ride-sharing and robotic package delivery apps, airport and college dorm security, and social credit schemes, as well against jaywalkers.

A Guangdong internet user surnamed Liang said the end result will be similar to the George Orwell dystopian satire, 1984, where ordinary people must take extraordinary measures to evade the eyes and ears of Big Brother.

“The situation is the same as in that foreign movie 1984,” Liang said. “For example, if I am a target of the stability maintenance [system], they can locate and detain me anywhere using Skynet cameras, facial recognition and license-plate recognition systems. There is nowhere that I can be invisible.”

“This centralized system pours all of its financial resources into controlling the whole of society and individuals, which creates a suffocating atmosphere that is almost the same as being in prison,” he said.

]]>https://stophkrepression.net/2018/11/08/china-rolls-out-facial-recognition-scans-on-guangzhou-subway/feed/0Hong Kong’s Basic Law is a constitution with Chinese characteristics, and not meant to lead to democracyhttps://stophkrepression.net/2018/11/07/hong-kongs-basic-law-is-a-constitution-with-chinese-characteristics-and-not-meant-to-lead-to-democracy/
https://stophkrepression.net/2018/11/07/hong-kongs-basic-law-is-a-constitution-with-chinese-characteristics-and-not-meant-to-lead-to-democracy/#respondWed, 07 Nov 2018 11:00:27 +0000https://stophkrepression.net/?p=767Continue reading "Hong Kong’s Basic Law is a constitution with Chinese characteristics, and not meant to lead to democracy"]]>Ronald Chiu says the Basic Law only constrains the rights of Hongkongers and puts no limits on Beijing’s authority – and that’s why it must be replaced

By SCMP, Ronald Chiu

This article first appeared in the SCMP on 3 November 2018Link to original article: HERE

Hong Kong needs a new constitution, because under the Basic Law, we have no real democracy, no real means of amending the constitution and no real means to check Beijing’s powers.

There will never be democracy under the Basic Law. That is why some Hongkongers now advocate for Hong Kong independence. That is why groups like the Hong Kong National Party have existed.

Last year, law professor Brian Jones argued in these pages that Hong Kong’s constitutional order had failed. He was right; the Basic Law fails because its terms are undemocratic.

First, the Basic Law’s bootleg democracy is so imperfect that even if every word were to be followed to the letter, nothing it could achieve would be what Hong Kong people can accept as democracy. Article 26 provides that permanent residents of the special autonomous region possess “in accordance with law” a right to vote and stand for election. But what does “in accordance with law” mean and who can we actually vote for? We know from Article 45 that it is not our head of government. At best, we “select” a candidate which China may appoint or reject.

Article 45 goes on: “The ultimate aim is the selection of the [chief executive] by universal suffrage upon nomination by a broadly representative nominating committee”. On “broadly representative”, Annex I provides that only 300 at most out of the 1,200 members of the election committee can be legislators. Thus, the democratically elected voices there will always find themselves drowned out in a sea of pro-establishment sycophancy.

But even if Hong Kong could vote for its own head of government, the chief executive would still not answer solely, or even primarily, to Hong Kong, because under Article 43, the chief executive is doubly accountable to Hong Kong and the central people’s government. And whose interests is she/he to prefer in case of conflict? I suspect that it will be the central government’s interests, not Hong Kong’s.

Watch: What is the Basic Law of Hong Kong?

Second, the Basic Law cannot be made to serve democracy because the mechanisms of amendment it provides for do not function in reality.

On paper, the city’s Legislative Council could with a two-thirds majority propose a bill for amendment, which the chief executive could endorse, which the National People’s Congress could with a two-thirds majority consent to, and which could eventually become law. In reality, with fewer than two-thirds of our legislature elected, and the rest consisting of pro-establishment functional constituencies, lawmakers would never consent to any amendment giving more power to the vote, or less power to Beijing.

Third, the Basic Law gives Beijing unlimited powers without imposing binding obligations in return. Consider Article 158, the Basic Law’s so-called interpretation clause, which on its face does no more than let local courts seek clarification from China’s highest judicial body. Yet, not two years after the 1997 handover, the NPC Standing Committee issued its first interpretation before application from any Hong Kong court.

Four more interpretations later, we now see that no interpretation, however wrong, can be challenged in a court of law. China’s power to interpret is free-standing and fettered by nothing.

When one compares Articles 158 and 159, a contrast emerges. China brandishes its powers of interpretation with reckless abandon; but a chain of checks and balances deny the people of Hong Kong their right to amend their own constitution. It is the kind of law that can only be wielded by the state against its subjects, never the subjects against the state – a constitution with Chinese characteristics.

Hong Kong has failed to make political progress over the past 21 years because we have been entrapped by a constitution we thought was ours.

As idealistic as they are, advocates for Hong Kong independence were right on one point: the Basic Law has failed democracy. It has failed the people of Hong Kong.

]]>https://stophkrepression.net/2018/11/07/hong-kongs-basic-law-is-a-constitution-with-chinese-characteristics-and-not-meant-to-lead-to-democracy/feed/0Chinese dissident Badiucao’s Hong Kong show cancelled over ‘threats’https://stophkrepression.net/2018/11/06/chinese-dissident-badiucaos-hong-kong-show-cancelled-over-threats/
https://stophkrepression.net/2018/11/06/chinese-dissident-badiucaos-hong-kong-show-cancelled-over-threats/#respondTue, 06 Nov 2018 10:57:18 +0000https://stophkrepression.net/?p=760Continue reading "Chinese dissident Badiucao’s Hong Kong show cancelled over ‘threats’"]]>An exhibition by a dissident Chinese-Australian cartoonist in Hong Kong has been cancelled by its organisers over what they said were threats from China.

By BBC

This article first appeared in BBC on 3 November 2018Link to original article: HERE

Badiucao’s work focuses on rights abuses and satirises President Xi Jinping.

His show was part of events examining free speech in Hong Kong since the 2014 pro-democracy “umbrella” protests.

The cancellation comes as pro-democracy activists say Hong Kong’s freedoms are being eroded by Beijing.

In a statement, Free Expression Week organisers Hong Kong Free Press, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders said Badiucao’s first solo show “Gongle” had been cancelled over “safety concerns”.

This article first appeared in The Diplomat on 20 October 2018Link to original article: HERE

At the end of October, after several months’ delay, a new bridge connecting the former British colony of Hong Kong with Macau and the Chinese city of Zhuhai will officially open.

The 55 kilometer long bridge crosses the mouth of the Pearl River, in the middle of which it briefly submerges into a tunnel that allows for passage of the largest ships. A vast crossroad just outside of Macau splits the Y-shaped bridge into the Macanese and Chinese parts.

The opening ceremony – located in Zhuhai to avoid potential protests – will certainly mention amazing engineering achievements and the tremendous potential of the bridge. Since it stands in the area where one of Asia’s largest rivers meets the South China Sea – and a location repeatedly hit by powerful typhoons — technical execution of the construction was undeniably challenging. So was the construction of the multiple artificial islands that serve for border control and bridge maintenance.

The bridge will be one of the most visible symbols of the Chinese Great Bay Area project that aims to emulate San Francisco’s example and connect Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, and other cities in the Pearl River delta into a metropolitan area and an integrated business center with 67 million inhabitants.

Few in Hong Kong are celebrating, though. The opponents of the project have a long list of objections, with the price tag coming out on top. While the idea of the bridge was conceived by the mainland officials, most of the burden is on the shoulders of Hong Kong’s taxpayers, who would rather see the funds spent on education or housing. They view the bridge as a way of transferring money from taxpayers to local and Chinese oligarchs, whose construction firms built the whole project.

Despite receiving a hefty check from the government, the builders still tried to save on the construction material. Due to the low quality of cement, artificial islands started disintegrating and drifting away only a few weeks after completion. Low safety standards lead to nine deaths and hundreds of injuries of construction workers. A parliamentary control found falsified stress tests, for which two supervisors where handed jail sentences.

And a detail: The bridge will never recover the cost of construction. Traffic projections have been reduced by one-quarter, since China is building a parallel bridge just 30 kilometers to the north. The lifetime of the construction is only 80 years – for comparison, half of the bridges to Manhattan are older than 80 years and work perfectly fine.

Environmentalists are challenging the bridge as well. The construction has invaded the habitat of the critically endangered pink dolphin, which only survives in this area. But it is not only dolphins that are in peril – all sea creatures are affected when large amounts of sand are dumped on the seafloor.

The ride on the bridge will offer spectacular views of the Hong Kong airport, a panorama of Shenzhen Bay, and the ridges of Lantau island, with a large Buddha statue sitting on top of them. Yet in order to enjoy the scenic ride, one has to first complete a two week-long document hunting process: a closed roads permit in Hong Kong, license plate in Macau, car insurance in Macau or China. Getting all these documents will take at least 12 business days; hence a hopeful driver must plan well ahead. Yet, the permits, valid for two years, do not automatically guarantee an entry on the bridge.

That permit will only be granted to 150 private cars a day and the applicants – Hong Kong permanent residents only – have to prove they are employed or have a firm in Macau. If there are more than 150 applicants on any day, and licenses will be distributed via a lottery. The lucky drivers will still not be able to make it all the way to Macau: they must leave their cars in a car park just before the entrance to Macau and continue with public transport or taxi. The journey also comes with two border controls, and if one’s destination is China, drivers need to change lanes in the middle of the bridge, as traffic drives on the left in Hong Kong and Macau, while on the right in China.

Currently, high-speed ferries take passengers from Hong Kong’s business area to Macau in exactly one hour, plus a few minutes clearing immigration on both sides. The same trip will take about 2 hours when using the bridge – not counting the time spent safeguarding all necessary permits. Plus, the bridge is 45 minutes away from downtown Hong Kong, has a low speed limit, requires two border checks, and will take time to get from the car park to central Macau.

The bridge will never recover its costs. Hardly anyone can drive on it. Why was it built then? The answer is politics. On the one hand, the local government depends on the support of oligarchs; therefore, it is important for the officials to maintain good relations with the city’s richest people. Nothing will please a tycoon more than a large construction project from the government’s budget. No wonder such projects are nicknamed white elephants, after a Buddhist legend in which a white elephant is an undesired present, as it has no value, yet it needs to be taken care of.

A second, more important explanation is the attempt of the Chinese government to accelerate and deepen the integration of Hong Kong into China in order to weaken the separatist moods in the city and limit the spread of subversive ideas such as press freedom, human rights, or an independent judiciary. A bridge that connects two autonomous regions with mainland China is a perfect weapon in the propaganda department’s arsenal.

HONG KONG: Thousands took to the streets in Hong Kong Sunday (Oct 14) to protest a government plan to build new housing on artificial islands, claiming the “white elephant” project will damage the environment and line the pockets of developers.

The government’s proposal to reclaim 1,700 hectares of land around Hong Kong’s largest outlying island, Lantau, has been touted as a solution to the pressing housing shortage in the city – notorious for being one of the least affordable markets on the planet.

City leader Carrie Lam said new residential units on the proposed artificial islands could accommodate 1.1 million people in the coming years, and pledged to reserve 70 per cent of them for public housing.

But critics say the massive projects are too costly and will also destroy the environment – especially marine life – with many also expressing frustration over the lack of public say in the plans.

There is no official figure for how much the islands will cost, but some campaigners have put the figure at HK$800 billion (US$102 billion).

Protesters chanted “We don’t want white elephants!” in Sunday’s march, joined by children holding up their own illustrations of Lantau’s famous Chinese white dolphins – whose numbers have plunged due to recent construction and reclamations, according to environmentalists.

Thousands took to the streets in Hong Kong to protest a government plan to build new housing on artificial islands which demonstrators say would drain public funds while fattening the pockets of developers. (Elaine YU/AFP)

“There are many ways to find land in Hong Kong, but (the authorities) don’t want to cross the property developers,” said 52-year-old Mr. Chan, referring to the government’s reluctance to take back the vast land banks held by developers.

For some, the project should be rejected for its environmental impact alone.

City officials are promoting the future metropolis of Lantau, which is linked to the mainland with a mega-bridge, as a gateway to the world and to neighbouring Chinese cities. Hong Kong’s international airport – also partially built on reclaimed land – is located just off Lantau.

This is not the first time a mega infrastructure project has sparked outcry in the city.

Hong Kong’s new high-speed rail link to the mainland and the soon-to-be-opened bridge connecting the city with Macau and Zhuhai have also proven divisive.

Supporters say the multi-billion-dollar projects will boost business, while others claim they are politically driven and costly white elephants aimed at blurring the boundaries between Hong Kong and mainland China as Beijing tightens its grip over the semi-autonomous city.

Prominent democracy activist Nathan Law, who joined Sunday’s protest, said the government’s use of public funds to “ardently” pursue mega-projects rather than welfare programmes such as universal pension shows its lack of will to improve people’s livelihoods.

“This is how an undemocratic government who doesn’t need to be accountable to the people performs,” Law told AFP.

This article first appeared in RFA on 24 October 2018Link to original article: HERE

The world’s longest sea-bridge–connecting Hong Kong, Zhuhai and Macau across China’s Pearl River estuary–opened to thin public traffic on Wednesday, with delays at both ends caused by the shuttle-bus system and immigration computers.

“I think that the updated details didn’t reach the system, so now it can’t read my card,” one traveler told RFA on arriving at Zhuhai in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, long lines formed in the former Portuguese enclave of Macau for shuttle buses to the immigration hall, prompting frustrations among travelers, while a shuttle bus broke down in Hong Kong.

In Macau, drivers of new bus services linking the cities via the bridge said poor signage meant they were unable to find the border checkpoint, and were left driving around the city looking for clues.

Local media reports indicated that some of the first people to drive along the 55 kilometre (34-mile) bridge, which dives under the sea just off Hong Kong’s Lantau Island, to Zhuhai in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong did so in just 30 minutes, however.

And some passengers said the trip was “a dream come true.”

“I have waited for years for this, and now my dreams have become reality,” one passenger said. “I think a lot of people will use it in future.”

Congestion fears

The ruling Chinese Communist Party’s chief in Beijing hailed the bridge as as “great news” for the whole country.

“This can be called a modern wonder of the world,” Cai Qi told journalists on Wednesday, a day after the formal opening ceremony led by President Xi Jinping.

Some Hong Kong residents, especially in the Tung Chung new town near Hong Kong’s international airport on Lantau Island, said they fear rising rents, prices and traffic congestion as a result of increased traffic over the bridge, however.

“Prices in Tung Chung are already quite high, and will the stores now be more oriented to tourists rather than residents?” former lawmaker Bill Tang said of a district that already hosts busloads of mainland Chinese shoppers at a mall specializing in discounted labels.

“In particular, there is already a lack of smaller shops,” he said.

The bridge has also been criticized for laborious insurance requirements and limited parking spaces, as well as the need to pay toll fees (set at 150 yuan per private car) in China’s currency, rather than in Hong Kong dollars.

However, those taking a bus across to mainland China will pay as little as H.K.$65, with services running 24 hours a day, local media reported.

Shuttle buses connect to the immigration halls at either end of the bridge, while those who buy non-stop bus tickets must disembark to go through immigration at both ends.

One passenger on the bridge said they thought it would soon replace the high-speed jetfoil and hoverferry services currently preferred by those heading to the casinos of Macau, or to Zhuhai and points north.

Immigration process delays

However, some reports comparing the modes of transport to Macau said the high-speed ferry took 1 hour, 40 minutes compared with a total of two hours for the bridge route, with the immigration process and shuttle bus blamed for the additional delay.

Transport Secretary Frank Chan, who visited the area, said it was normal for such major infrastructure to see light usage on day one of public operation.

“Everyone should understand that in the early days of any infrastructure opening, there are always going to be fewer people and less traffic,” Chan told reporteres. “It will take time to build up.”

Hong Kong Legislative Council (LegCo) member Helena Wong said there weren’t enough parking spaces for drivers needing to go through immigration.

“If we don’t set a limit, and just allow cars from other cities to come to Hong Kong, and if incoming tourists aren’t stopped … and transferred to buses, it will increase congestion on Hong Kong’s roads,” Wong said.

Hung Wing-tat, transportation expert at Hong Kong’s Polytechnic University, said the bridge could see lower-than-expected traffic volumes as a result of the ongoing trade war between China and the United States.

Others said the bridge may just become a tourist attraction, rather than a reliable way to commute to and from mainland China.

“I am not optimistic about whether the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge can meet the required standard,” Helena Wong told RFA, pointing to two other major bridges planned for the Pearl River delta.

“Hong Kong will face great competition, and I can’t see us recuperating our investment for another 20 or 30 years,” she said.

The authorities said by 3pm on Wednesday, a total of 868 trips made through the world’s longest bridge that connects Hong Kong with the mainland, of which 297 were made towards Hong Kong, RTHK reported.

This article first appeared in The New York Times on 12 October 2018Link to original article: HERE

HONG KONG — The Hong Kong government on Friday disqualified a democracy advocate from running for a seat on the local legislature, the latest in a series of moves that have undermined the political power of the opposition camp in the semiautonomous Chinese city.

A local government officer told the democracy advocate, Lau Siu-lai, a community college lecturer and member of the city’s Labour Party, late Friday that she was ineligible to run in a November special election.

Hong Kong, a former British colony that returned to China in 1997, has its own local government. While half of its legislature is directly elected, efforts to expand democracy beyond that have met with little success.

The democratic camp has protested the barring of candidates and removal of elected lawmakers who have questioned Hong Kong’s future as a part of China. They accuse the authorities of relying on technicalities to remove lawmakers who have won popular support.

The government has said that it must ensure legislators are sincere in their belief that Hong Kong is an “inalienable part” of China. Many of the legislators ousted after the 2016 election, including Ms. Lau, were part of a wave of young activists who took to electoral politics after the 2014 protests known as the Umbrella Movement, which sought more open local elections.

Hong Kong officials said Ms. Lau was disqualified because of a previous statement that Hong Kong residents should be allowed to choose the territory’s political future, including the possibility of independence.

“The candidate cannot possibly comply with the requirements of the relevant electoral laws, since advocating or promoting ‘self-determination,’ or promoting independence” contradicts the declaration of fealty that candidates are required to make, the government said in a statement.

Ms. Lau, seeking to distance herself from her 2016 stances, has said she does not support Hong Kong’s independence from China.

She and her party said in a statement on Friday that they “condemned the government’s coarse interference in an election, ignoring a candidate’s right to run for office and the voters’ aspirations.” They accused the government of “again and again using political methods to suppress dissent,” while clearing the way for establishment politicians.

Fearing the possibility of a late disqualification after the nomination period closed, the Labour Party nominated a second candidate for the seat. Lee Cheuk-yan, a former legislator, filed on Friday as a backup candidate for Ms. Lau.

The Hong Kong government prohibited at least three pro-democracy candidates from running in a March election, including Agnes Chow, a prominent student leader during the 2014 protests. In that election the pro-democracy camp lost two seats, further weakening its declining clout in the local legislature.

This article first appeared in Taiwan News on 16 October 2018Link to original article: HERE

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Hong Kong is undergoing the worst ever democracy regression since its handover to China in 1997, as indicated by the latest incident in which a legislative candidate was barred from running for an election on Nov. 25, argued a report by Voice of America.

Lau Siu-lai (劉小麗), a pro-democracy lawmaker, was disqualified by the Hong Kong government on the grounds that she advocates self-determination. A government statement asserted that advocating independence contravenes the Basic Law, the territory’s de facto constitution.

According to the report, Hong Kong authorities have stepped up efforts to quash pro-independence voices over the past years, including the disqualification of six members-elect of the Legislative Council in an oath-taking controversy in 2016, and the prohibition of three pro-democracy candidates from running this March.

In addition, Hong Kong authorities banned the pro-independence Hong Kong National Party in September invoking a 1997 national security law for the first time. The party has since been declared illegal and schools at all levels have been warned against providing assistance for the party in holding political events or else face criminal charges.

These incidents indicated that following the 2014 Umbrella Movement, China has tightened its grip and is believed to have authorized the Hong Kong government to seek retribution against political dissidents, particularly young pro-democracy activists, leaving Hong Kong democracy in peril, wrote Voice of America.

This article first appeared in Radio Free Asia on 5 October 2018Link to original article: HERE

Authorities in Hong Kong have rejected the visa renewal application of a Financial Times journalist who chaired a speaking event featuring a pro-independence politician at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC) in August, effectively barring him from working in the city.

“The Hong Kong authorities have rejected an application to renew the work visa of Victor Mallet, Asia news editor at the Financial Times,” the newspaper said in a statement. “This is the first time we have encountered this situation in Hong Kong. We have not been given a reason for the rejection.”

Mallet was acting president of the FCC in August when the club invited Andy Chan, who heads the now-banned pro-independence Hong Kong National Party (HKNP), to speak at a lunch event.

He defended the club’s decision to invite Chan, and later revealed to journalists that he had been approached by a Chinese foreign ministry official who wanted him to cancel the event.

The Hong Kong Journalists’ Association (HKJA) said it was “shocked and outraged” at the decision not to renew Mallet’s visa.

“This is the first time a foreign journalist based in Hong Kong has been denied a work visa, raising questions that the incident was related to Mallet’s work at the FCC,” the group said in a statement on its Facebook page on Friday.

It said the fact that Mallet was the acting FCC chairman at the time, and given the Hong Kong government’s direct, public criticism of the FCC’s event mean “it is hard not to construe the government’s rejection of his visa application at this juncture as a settling of accounts.”

“Freedom of speech and freedom of the press are the cornerstones of Hong Kong’s success,” the HKJA said. “This rejection of a journalist’s visa application is a further, and very serious, blow to those freedoms.”

HKJA chairman Chris Yeung said the government appeared to be making an example of Mallet over the public discussion of independence for Hong Kong, a topic that is anathema to Beijing.

“It seems that they are making a scapegoat out of him by punishing the editor who hosted the FCC lunch debate with Andy Chan,” Yeung said. “I think that Hong Kong will probably become exactly like mainland China in future, with the government suppressing freedom of the press.”

“I think the concept of one country, two systems is dead,” he said, in a reference to promises that Hong Kong’s way of life would remain unchanged for at least 50 years under Chinese rule.

Victor Mallet (R), a Financial Times journalist and vice president of Hong Kong’s Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCC), shakes hands with Andy Chan (2nd from R), founder of the Hong Kong National Party, during a luncheon at the FCC in Hong Kong, Aug. 14, 2018.

Chan said the move was “very clearly a settling of scores, and one that has severely encroached on freedom of speech and press freedom in Hong Kong.”

“They want to make an example of him to warn everyone else that they can’t talk about independence ever again,” he told reporters on Friday. “I really think that press freedom and one country, two systems are over.”

Freedom of speech shrinking

The HKJA, which hit out at shrinking freedom of speech in the former British colony in an annual report in July, called on the Hong Kong government to reverse and explain the reasons for its decision.

The report said the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s insistence that Hong Kong enact sedition and subversion laws further criminalizing speech in the city represents a further, and severe, threat to the city’s promised freedoms under the terms of the 1997 handover agreement.

Democracy campaigner Joseph Cheng, a former political science professor at Hong Kong’s City University, said Hong Kong is increasingly a target of Beijing “stability maintenance” program aimed at stifling internal criticism of the government.

“Hong Kong is included in this stability maintenance work, because in the eyes of the Communist Party, most of the critical voices aimed in its direction have their origin in Hong Kong,” Cheng said.

“Hong Kong is also the starting point, and a channel for, a lot of negative news about China,” he said. “They are also very worried that the political opposition in Hong Kong will start influencing mainland China, and having an impact on its stability.”

He hit out at the Hong Kong government for being so ready to cave in to pressure from Beijing.

“These concessions have affected Hong Kong’s international image … for example, [recent reports] have warned about interference by China in the city’s rule of law in recent years,” he said.